


Sacrificial Snake

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Litha to Lammas [14]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Present Tense, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-24 23:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry is finally free of the curse that made him able to speak only Parseltongue for thirteen months. Fresh from a summer in Florence with Blaise and the destruction of the Horcrux in his scar, he returns to Britain, ready to prove to everyone that yes, he really is in love with a Slytherin and no, he doesn’t need to be a sacrifice.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my fics “Vellum Voices” and “Serpentine Summer,” and also one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics. It will probably have four parts.

****“Are you sure that you’re ready to see them?”

Harry nods, then jumps when Blaise abruptly grips his wrist hard. “Sorry. I _do_ know that I can talk now. It’s just habit from all the months when I couldn’t.” Or when he knows he could, but no one would understand him and most people would run screaming from a bit of hissing, anyway.

“If you’re not ready to see them, we can leave. Mother would be happy to Apparate us to Hogwarts.”

“I’m ready,” Harry mutters under his breath, scanning the crowd of students spilling onto the platform for Ron and Hermione. Honestly, he loves Blaise, but his overprotectiveness is annoying. The only thing Harry can think of is to ignore it when he can and push back against it when he has to, the same way he does when Hermione goes on about studying too long or Ron won’t talk about anything but how much he hates Malfoy.

The first person he sees and wants to talk to actually isn’t Ron or Hermione. It’s a huge black dog trotting next to the Weasley family as Molly shepherds Ginny in front of her. Sirius’s eyes widen when he sees Harry. Then his ears perk up and he’s dashing towards him.

“Here comes Black,” Blaise mutters, and then raises a smoky screen around them with a single flick of his wrist. Harry has never asked whether Mrs. Zabini removed the Trace on his wand or if Blaise just has some other way of getting past it. It never seemed important.

Other things do.

Sirius skids to a stop in front of them and barely gives Blaise’s wobbling smoke screen a glance to make sure it’s solid before he transforms. Then he reaches out and hugs Harry, hard. Harry pats Sirius’s back awkwardly, but steps away when Sirius tries to pull Harry behind him.

For one thing, his and Blaise’s hands are still joined. It’s not going to work anyway.

“Harry?” Sirius has huge eyes that seem even more canine than the last time Harry saw him. They dart back and forth now between his and Blaise’s hands, and then his lip lifts from his teeth.

“You’re not in dog form right now, Sirius, so stop it unless you want me to knock you on the nose,” Harry says, and he thinks it’s his unimpressed tone that drives the growl away from Sirius’s throat as if it’s never been there.

Sirius stares at him, and his eyes grow wider and wider. “Harry?” he whispers. “You can speak English again? Did—did Dumbledore do something?”

Harry snorts. “When I was in Italy all summer? Of course not. Mrs. Zabini helped me get rid of the curse, and Blaise has been making sure that I have a reason to live.” He smiles at Blaise.

Blaise smiles back, but with the little edge to it that he gets whenever Harry even _jokes_ about dying. Harry hides a sigh. Blaise got upset when Harry didn’t tell him that he fully expected to die in the war, one way or another, and now he gets upset whenever Harry talks about how much he wants to live. There’s no winning with him.

“But—but how? There’s no way that anyone could break the curse, or Albus would have found a way.” Sirius looks distressed enough to nearly run away, but instead he’s breathing heavily, his hands forming into fists at his sides.

“The curse was anchored around the Horcrux in my scar. Mrs. Zabini knows Legilimency, so she undid it—”

“Horcrux? What?” Sirius is so pale that he matches the color of Blaise’s smoke. “I—you were one? You _are_ one? I don’t understand.”

“That seems to be a common occurrence,” Blaise mutters, but Harry digs an elbow into his ribs and makes him shut up. He promised to be silent when Blaise interacts with some of the stupid people in Slytherin. The least Blaise can do is let Harry decide how he wants to handle things with his godfather.

“Voldemort left a piece of his soul in me the night he attacked Mum and Dad,” Harry says softly. He ignores Blaise’s addition of “And you.” “That’s what made it so easy for him to send me dreams and visions, and that’s what he anchored the Parseltongue curse to. It took a lot of effort for Mrs. Zabini to get rid of it, because I had to trust her enough to let her into my mind. And it was painful. But it’s gone now, so the curse went with it.”

Sirius swallows. “I just—there are other Legilimens you could have gone to.”

“Who, Black?” Blaise asks, and this time, he completely ignores Harry’s elbow. “Snape, who tore apart Harry’s mind on Dumbledore’s orders last year? _Dumbledore_ , who had to know about this Horcrux if my mother could see it, but didn’t tell Harry it was there and never made an attempt to help with the curse?”

“Blaise, you said—”

“Yes, but you would phrase it too gently. This way, Black can’t just disregard me because I’m a Slytherin or whatever stupid reason he has.”

“You kidnapped Harry! Of course I was worried!”

“I didn’t kidnap him. I prevented him from spending a summer with people who would have abused him.” Blaise takes a step forwards, and maybe it’s because of spending a summer with him, but Harry honestly forgot he could be this intimidating. Magic seems to billow around him like fire. “One would think that you would care more about that, Black, and less about the crest on my robes.”

Sirius snarls. Harry steps between them before Blaise can tug him backwards again.

“Blaise, stop it. Sirius, stop it.” Harry speaks quietly but firmly. It’s something he learned from Mrs. Zabini, because then they have to shut up to hear him. It works now. “I’m fine, Sirius. I didn’t suffer from being with Blaise and his mum, and I’m in a lot better health than I was when I spent my summers with the Dursleys.”

“I—Harry, kiddo, I _know_ that.” Sirius’s eyes are so earnest. “But you wouldn’t even tell us where you were!”

“Because Dumbledore would have made me go back to the Dursleys.” Harry has no doubt of that, even if he no longer has the Horcrux in him. Dumbledore is absolutely convinced that the Dursleys’ house is the safest place for Harry, and one thing Harry knows is that Dumbledore doesn’t change his mind easily. “And you would have told him where I was.”

“I wanted to just come and visit.”

Blaise snorts loudly. “Are you aware that your eyes dart off to the side when you lie, Black?”

“I said _stop it_.” Harry holds Blaise’s arm and reaches out to punch Sirius’s shoulder when he opens his mouth to say something that’s probably going to be stupid and obnoxious. “And I meant it. Sirius, are you loyal to me or to Dumbledore?”

His godfather looks absolutely flummoxed about being put on the spot like that. Blaise abruptly relaxes next to him, but Harry is aware that has more to do with being smug about Sirius’s reaction. Harry squeezes his arm, hard.

Blaise gives him a possessive, sidelong look. Harry changes his mind about how effective the squeezing of his arm actually is.

“I’m loyal to you, of course,” Sirius finally whispers. The train is going to leave in just a few minutes, and Harry shifts his weight. Sirius starts speaking faster. “But I would have—Harry, we _have_ to keep you safe! Even if you’ve got rid of the Horcrux now, it’s not like the Death Eaters know that! And Dumbledore is the best shot to keep you safe.”

“Why?” Blaise asks sweetly. “It’s not like he’s been standing guard over Harry himself during the summers.”

“The blood wards around Harry’s house—”

“Would be ineffective without _love_ from his Muggle family, Black. Which he didn’t have.”

Sirius closes his eyes. “If it was that bad, Harry, why did you never tell me about it?” he whispers.

“Oh, yes, blame him,” Blaise says savagely, but this time, he does fall silent at the look Harry gives him. Harry turns back to Sirius.

“I didn’t tell anyone. I kept being told there no alternative, both when I was a kid and the Dursleys kept me instead of tossing me out, and then when I was at Hogwarts and Dumbledore talked about how safe their house was for me. And the Dursleys kept threatening to take me to an orphanage. I didn’t know what they were like. I thought they might be _worse_. The only person in the wizarding world who wanted me was you, and you were a fugitive on the run and you did what Dumbledore told you.”

Sirius looks almost broken. Harry sighs sadly. He never wanted this. He wants to have a good relationship with Sirius.

But one thing Mrs. Zabini (Harry still can’t call her Hasfa even in his head) is right about. Harry won’t have that until Sirius breaks his habit of relying on Dumbledore to do his thinking for him. Hell, if Harry hadn’t broken that habit for himself, he never would have gone to Florence with Blaise.

“I just can’t agree that the Headmaster is the enemy,” Sirius says, with a shake of his head. “Not compared to You-Know-Who.”

“Then let’s see how he reacts to the revelation that Harry doesn’t have a Horcrux in him anymore,” Blaise says sweetly, and touches Harry’s shoulder. “Harry, the Express is going to be leaving in two minutes.”

Sirius grabs Harry in a hug that makes Harry whoof, and whispers into his ear, “You’ll write to me? About that and—other things?”

Harry hugs him back, and nods against his shoulder. “‘Course. I love you, Sirius.”

“And I love you, too.” Sirius changes back into a dog as Blaise banishes the charm that’s kept them from the view of the train platform, and then Blaise directs Harry right towards the train without pausing for the people who want to gape at them or talk to Harry.

“You know,” Harrys says under his breath as they get onto the train and their trunks follow them, “I like the way you protect me. I love you. But if you haul me around all the time, and try to control my conversations with my friends, we’re going to have _problems_.”

Blaise pauses for a long moment. Then he nods and directs Harry into a compartment. He faces Harry and swats his hair from his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I keep being afraid that now you’re back with your friends again, you’re going to forget all about me and just go back to being exactly like you were in fourth year before—the curse.”

Harry leans in to kiss Blaise lightly. Blaise keeps his hands at his sides, seeming to take Harry’s complaint about him manhandling Harry around seriously. But his eyes grow brighter, and Harry can see a slight change in the color of his cheeks.

“It’s going to be fine,” Harry says, as steadily as he can. “Different from when we were at your house for the summer, because I can speak again and everyone’s going to go mental about that. But I _promise_ that you’re always going to be important to me, Blaise.”

Blaise lets his eyes slip shut for a second, leaning forwards until he’s the one resting against Harry’s hands. Harry looks at him in wonder. He knows Blaise would never let anyone else see him like that.

“As long as you can promise that,” Blaise whispers. “Stay with me.”

Harry kisses the inside of Blaise’s wrist. “I promise.”

*

“Hi, Harry.”

Ron’s voice is high and nervous. Harry glances up with a smile. Blaise tenses next to him on the seat of the compartment, but settles down when Harry nudges him with the side of his leg. Ron and Hermione come in slowly.

Neither of them is carrying their trunks, so they must have found a place of their own. Harry watches as Hermione bites her lip and then sits down across from him. Ron does the same thing a second later. Blaise does nothing except shift and sigh loudly.

“Oh, shut up, Zabini!” Ron explodes, as if he’s been waiting for that. “If you hadn’t kidnapped him all summer—”

“I’m getting tired of people describing it as kidnapping,” Harry interrupts. “I went with Blaise of my own free will. You knew who I was with. I just wouldn’t come back to England, and I wouldn’t send you exact Apparition coordinates. That’s all.”

For a long moment, Ron and Hermione gape at him. Harry smiles at them. “What? Surprised to hear me speaking English?”

“Oh, _Harry_.” Hermione looks as if she would like to fling herself across the compartment and hug him, but also knows that would be inappropriate. She settles for squeezing his hand, hard. Ron just stares in wonder and shakes his head, although Harry thinks he would do more if they were in private.

“Blaise and his mother undid the curse and gave me back my voice.” Harry raises his chin and leans sideways into Blaise. “So they didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”

“I knew Zabini wouldn’t hurt you,” Hermione says. Harry is somewhat reassured by the smile she gives Blaise. “But it was hard to calm Sirius down. And Professor Dumbledore said some strange things.”

 _I bet he did,_ Harry thinks savagely. He doesn’t hate Dumbledore as much as Blaise and his mum seem to, but he has to admit that the man doesn’t look good when he wouldn’t tell Harry about the Horcrux. “I was fine,” he repeats. “Sirius doesn’t trust Slytherins, you know that. And Professor Dumbledore was useless last year.”

“Mate?” Ron looks utterly startled.

Harry sighs. “I mean he was useless in getting the curse undone. Mrs. Zabini managed. Professor Dumbledore is acting strange because of something I have to talk to him about. And I did talk to Sirius when we were in the train station.”

“He was worried sick about you,” Ron says, with a quick look at Blaise. Blaise only sits silently, looking at them as if they’re interesting but not worth arguing with. “He wouldn’t come out of his room for a week.”

“I’m glad that he’s feeling better now,” Harry says. Sirius must be, if he came to King’s Cross with the Weasleys in the first place. “But he’ll have to get used to the fact that I’m making my own decisions now.”

“Can’t he—I mean, I’ve read in _Hogwarts, A History_ that the Headmaster stands _in loco parentis_ for orphaned students while they’re at Hogwarts,” Hermione says hesitantly.

Harry is grateful that Blaise and Mrs. Zabini had him read so many books this summer, or he wouldn’t know what _in loco parentis_ means. “I have a signed document from my legal guardians saying that Mrs. Zabini is going to watch over me from now on, and if I’m sick or injured or otherwise in trouble, Professor Dumbledore will have to have a discussion with her,” he says coolly.

“You got the _Dursleys_ to sign that?” Ron is actually gasping.

“Yes,” Harry says. “By sending them a letter explaining they could be rid of me forever if they just did it.”

Blaise shifts again. Harry knows Blaise disagreed with that decision, not because he wanted the Dursleys to have custody of Harry, but because he wanted to punish them, not ignore them. But Harry is just glad that it’s behind him. Dudley might still grow up to be a decent person. There’s probably no hope for Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but this way, Harry doesn’t have to stick around to find out.

“You didn’t want Sirius as your guardian?” Hermione asks that as if she’s afraid of the answer, but she does ask.

“Not when he would have kept me from seeing Blaise, and probably taken me away from Florence and prevented Mrs. Zabini from getting rid of the curse.”

Hermione finally sighs and reaches out to squeeze his hand again. Ron doesn’t look as though he knows what to make of the whole thing. “Well, at least it’s gone. That’s one thing we can feel glad about.”

Harry happily agrees, and then they catch up on how their summers were. Blaise interjects only occasionally. Harry doesn’t worry about that, though. Blaise is simply more conversational when they’re alone.

And _other_ things when they’re alone, too. Harry catches his eye at one point, and Blaise smiles at him in a way that leads Harry’s mind straight to the bedroom.

Harry sighs. It’s going to be difficult as hell being up in Gryffindor Tower while Blaise is down in the dungeons, but luckily, he has an Invisibility Cloak.

*

“I am beyond glad that you have your voice restored to you, my boy.”

And that’s one of the things that bothers Harry about Dumbledore: the man can be sincere when he tries. Harry is pretty sure he’s sincere now.

It just makes his failure to do something about the Horcrux before this all the more mysterious.

Harry smiles at him. “Thanks, sir. It was actually pretty easy once Mrs. Zabini realized that the curse was anchored to the Horcrux.”

Dumbledore jerks back at that, knocking a delicate silver something to the floor. His face turns the color that most other people’s did when they heard Harry speak for the first time in the Great Hall. Harry watches him, and he won’t deny the poisonous enjoyment stirring to life in his chest.

“What did you say?” Dumbledore whispers.

“I said that it was actually pretty easy once Mrs. Zabini realized that the curse was anchored to the Horcrux.”

Maybe Harry shouldn’t take that much pleasure in being spiteful, but this man would have seen him condemned to death, or worse, because—why? That’s the question Harry accepted the summons to Dumbledore’s office tonight hoping to answer.

Dumbledore closes his eyes and exhales slowly. “Then you must realize why I didn’t tell you about it, or offer to remove the curse.”

“No.” Harry leans forwards. “Because _Mrs. Zabini_ removed the Horcrux. That was partially because the curse defined the shape of it, so it was easier. But she’s not as powerful as you, so you could have seen it and you could have done the same thing. Why didn’t you?”

“Oh, Harry.” Dumbledore’s eyes open slowly. And there’s the sheen of actual tears on them. Harry blinks, not having expected that. “I didn’t tell you because I would have had to admit that the Horcrux existed.”

Harry frowns. Blaise speculated once that that was Dumbledore’s motive, but his take was that Dumbledore didn’t want to face up to the consequences of not telling Harry about it earlier. Harry doesn’t believe that without a confession. “What do you mean? Why didn’t you want to do that?”

Dumbledore gives him an incredulous look. “Because it is a horrifying realization. I wanted you to have as carefree a childhood as possible.”

Harry slaps his hand over his face and sighs, long and slow. Maybe he shouldn’t, maybe it’s disrespectful to a powerful wizard in a way that even Mrs. Zabini warned him not to be, but he can’t help it. “Professor. _Sir_. Don’t you realize that my childhood stopped being carefree a long time before I came to Hogwarts?”

“I know that you relatives did not take the best care of you,” Dumbledore says. Harry winces a little, and not from the admission. If he tells Blaise those words, he’ll try to include Dumbledore in his vengeance on the Dursleys. “But I did not know how to handle the Horcrux.”

Harry stares at him. “Why not?”

“It is true that I could have got rid of it after Voldemort attached that curse to it.” Dumbledore is speaking with his eyes on the desk, but Harry doesn’t think he’s lying. Rather, he’s too ashamed to look Harry in the face. “But—I feared to cause you pain. For the year before that, when I first began to believe that it was within you, I could think of no solution but for Voldemort to cast the Killing Curse at you. There was the _chance_ that it would have killed the soul-shard in you and not you, yourself.”

Harry feels his breath stop.

So Dumbledore was planning to kill him. That’s not something Harry really believed, not even when Blaise would insist on it in a dark murmur, and Mrs. Zabini would frown and agree.

Harry stares at Dumbledore’s bowed head, and finally breathes again. It’s still hard to make the air go in and out of his lungs the way it’s supposed to.

Even if it was because he couldn’t think of anything else to do and he truly believed it would spare Harry suffering, Harry doesn’t think that he’ll ever be able to trust the Headmaster again.

Harry finally clears his throat, because it’s obvious that Dumbledore won’t talk again on his own. “But when you realized the curse was wrapped around it, why didn’t you try to take it out the way Mrs. Zabini did it?”

“I was afraid that Voldemort might use the connection in your mind to look into my eyes through yours and read my plans there,” Dumbledore whispers. “He must know the connection exists, and what it is, because of how he attached the Parseltongue curse to it. I know many secrets that are not my own only, but the Order of the Phoenix’s as well.”

Harry swallows and looks away. It’s all understandable. It’s not evil. Last year, Harry would have found it so easy to accept.

But months of being told over and over, by both Blaise and his mother, that he deserves to be loved and cherished has affected Harry. He can’t really accept that Dumbledore has placed Harry’s safety behind the safety of people like Snape and Order members Harry had never met.

And he left Harry with the Dursleys. There’s a pain like teeth chewing in Harry’s soul. The space it’s hollowing out is probably going to fill up with distrust and never heal.

“Harry?”

Harry turns back, and sees Dumbledore smiling at him wistfully. “I perfectly understand why you might not want to forgive me right now,” he says quietly. “I should have sought some other solution. But may I hope for your forgiveness eventually?”

“Maybe,” Harry says. He’s not sure he can. If nothing else, he would have to keep that forgiveness from Blaise, and Harry just doesn’t _want_ to keep secrets from him.

“That is all I have the right to ask. And may I also hope for your cooperation in the war?”

Harry frowns. “What can I do? I don’t get visions of Voldemort anymore because the Horcrux is gone. I mean, I would fight back if he attacked me or someone I knew or Hogwarts itself, but I don’t know what else I can do.”

Dumbledore picks up his wand and waves it over his right arm, murmuring something under his breath. Harry recoils as an illusion spell wisps away from the skin and reveals black and peeling disaster. It looks as though Dumbledore’s hand has been roasted and is also rotting from the inside at the same time.

“There are other Horcruxes,” Dumbledore says simply. “I destroyed one this summer, but the consequences were—as you see. I doubt I will live long enough to destroy the others. Will you take over that quest for me, and make sure that Voldemort is mortal and can be destroyed at the last? There are reasons why it should be you.”

Harry swallows. “One of the other Horcruxes did that to you? And you think _I_ can do it.”

“Those reasons I mentioned, Harry. I can reveal them to you if you agree that this war is still your war. Otherwise, I must keep them secret because of them touching other people’s secrets, as I mentioned before.”

Harry sighs. Blaise was right about one thing. The revelation that Harry knew about the Horcrux and isn’t one anymore didn’t change much. Dumbledore is still spinning plots and hinting at cryptic knowledge instead of just talking about the things that he wants Harry to know.

“I’ll think about it. But I don’t want to get involved in all these things without talking to Blaise, sir.”

Dumbledore’s face tightens minutely. “It seems this young man has gained a great deal of influence over you in a short amount of time.”

“Yeah, well, when someone actually volunteers to help me, that’s what happens,” Harry says coldly. “And he was the only one who stood by me last year except Ron and Hermione when everyone else hated me for speaking Parseltongue and you assigned Snape to rip my mind apart.”

“Harry, my boy, if you had learned Occlumency, then I would have felt much more comfortable about removing the curse and the Horcrux—”

“Yes, everything is still my fault, isn’t it?” Harry asks. He’s bitter and as sore as though he’s run miles. He wanted to think things would be different and Blaise would be wrong, but he’s not. “When you’re ready to tell me things without me giving life-changing promises, sir, then please let me know.” He turns around and walks out of Dumbledore’s office, leaning heavily on the wall as the moving staircase carries him down.

Blaise is against the wall nearest the gargoyle, and straightens up the second he sees Harry. Harry gives him the kind of half-hearted glare he did Dumbledore. He _told_ Blaise not to wait, but of course he would.

“Are you all right?” Blaise’s voice is low and warm, and he runs one hand down Harry’s arm and over his chest as if testing for his heartbeat.

“I’m fine,” Harry says, and exhales. “I just—he still wants to _use_ me, Blaise. He wants me to make promises without telling me why, and he wants me to destroy the other Horcruxes when he’s already been injured by one, and he says that he didn’t want to look into my mind because he had to keep other people’s secrets safe and he thought Voldemort would see them in his head through me. Why am I always the _least_ important person to him?”

Harry chokes when he realizes that his eyes are burning, and reaches up to wipe at them. The last thing he wants is to cry in front of Blaise, who has borne so much and stood by him so steadily.

Blaise kisses him, though, and keeps on kissing him until Harry relaxes into him with a sigh. Then Blaise murmurs against his lips, “You shouldn’t be alone tonight. Come with me to Slytherin. No one will hear us or notice us once the curtains are pulled on my bed.”

Harry stares at him in surprise. “I have my Cloak—but—my friends will worry—”

“And they know that we’re together. They might worry, but they’ll also guess, and I don’t think they’ll tell.”

“No,” Harry agrees in an exhale, and lets himself agree the rest of the way by pulling his Cloak from his robes. Blaise smiles at him in a way that makes Harry want to give him everything.

Because Blaise gives him everything. Because Blaise, for whatever reason, is in love with him, and Harry doesn’t know what he did to deserve this, but he’s slowly coming around to the idea that he _does_ deserve it.

And he’ll give what Blaise gave him a thousandfold.

No one stops them on the way down to Slytherin, and they make it into Blaise’s bed with no trouble. Then Blaise sets charms on the curtains of the bed that will keep whatever happens inside them silent and prevent anyone from opening them, and turns around to Harry with a brilliant grin.

“Come here,” he says.

Harry drops the Cloak and crosses the distance with a delighted lunge.


	2. Chapter 2

“Where were you last night, mate?” Ron whispers as Harry slides into place beside him at the Gryffindor table.

Harry waggles his eyebrows at Ron, who stares at him for a second. Then his face turns some combination of white and purple, and he looks briefly over at Blaise at the Slytherin table before he turns sharply away.

“Yeah, fine,” he says hoarsely. “Don’t tell me anything about it. I don’t want to know.”

Harry laughs and takes some of the toast. He’s in a roaring good mood with the world today, like being in the middle of a waterfall with the sun shining on it. “If it helps, Blaise and I won’t be doing this often. It’s too risky.”

“What? Using your Cloak to sneak around?” Hermione takes the seat next to him on the other side. She must have got distracted by some book in the library, Harry notes; normally, Ron is never to breakfast before she is. “Good. It’s risky.”

“Yes, I just said that,” Harry says, and beams at her.

Hermione looks away for a second, and then laughs in what sounds like resignation. “And I can’t even worry about the kind of impact that he’s having on you, because no one has ever made you this _happy_ , Harry. Tell Zabini I’ll do whatever I can to help him, because he’s helping you so much in return.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, and hugs her with one arm for a second before he turns to the important business of getting food into his stomach and making eyes at Blaise across the Great Hall.

Some of the Slytherins look disgusted by that. As far as Harry is concerned, they’re welcome to, although he does spare a fleeting thought to what kind of reputation Blaise is going to get in his own House. He’d _better_ tell Harry if he has any trouble, considering the kind of hell he would raise if Harry didn’t tell him about problems with the Gryffindors.

*

Snape is the Defense professor.

Blaise is unhappy about this.

Snape has done a lot for Slytherins in general, or so he likes to brag. In truth, Blaise has long found his favoritism in Potions irritating. It’s harder to make his own mark when everyone always attributes his abilities to Snape’s insistence on trying to get Slytherins out of trouble and give them unfair points. And Snape spends more attention on the Slytherins who are from prominent British families or have Death Eater parents.

With part of himself, Blaise understands that. If Snape can persuade them not to be so stupid, then he would probably consider that a deed well-done.

But it also means that Snape has ignored issues of bullying and unfairness among the Slytherins if the students have parents who were too intelligent to be taken in by the Dark Lord’s nonsense. Blaise doesn’t see why he should have to go to his Head of House with clear evidence that Malfoy was practicing torture curses last year, as part of Umbridge’s Inquisitorial Squad, and be dismissed.

Now Snape has taken over the Defense class, which is Harry’s best subject.

Blaise will be watching him.

Sure enough, it only takes five minutes into Snape’s lecture about nonverbal spells before he decides to turn and target Harry.

“Of course, our _celebrity_ should have no problem with those spells,” Snape says, and Blaise wonders if someone once told him the sneer was a good idea. It’s not. “Seeing as he spent most of last year wordless.”

Harry’s shoulders tighten, and Blaise can see how badly he wants to retort. But instead, he does as Mother said would be a good idea: fastens his eyes in the middle of Snape’s nose, to make it impossible for the man to read his mind, and says mildly, “I don’t think I know that much more nonverbal magic than anyone else, sir.”

“Five points from Gryffindor for insolence,” Snape says, and swirls away in a blast of black robes. Blaise catches a disgruntled expression on the face of Seamus Finnigan, who was one of the people who thought Harry was lying last year. Blaise will be watching him, too.

Snape pairs them up to practice nonverbal Shield Charms. Blaise moves towards Harry, but Snape is abruptly standing in front of him, staring down one side of his nose.

“I think it advisable that you do not work with your _partner_ ,” Snape breathes. “That place will be taken by Mr. Malfoy. Why don’t you work with Miss Granger, Mr. Zabini?”

Blaise nods mildly and goes to stand opposite Granger. He truly has no objection to her, unless she decides that she needs to “rescue” Harry from him. She’s intelligent enough to ask the right questions, which spares Blaise from having to speak up more often than he likes. His mother’s best advice when he came to Hogwarts was to remain reticent, not showing his abilities or brain as openly as he might, to surprise those who could come after him.

He’s showed more of himself to Harry than anyone else. And he doesn’t mind showing more if it will keep Snape or Malfoy from tormenting Harry.

“Harry’s going to be all right.”

Blaise smiles at Granger. “Oh, I know that. He’s strong. And he knows that if he did get in trouble, I would have his back.” He draws his wand and waits for Granger to try the nonverbal _Protego._

She doesn’t, though. “What would you do?”

“If Malfoy did something to Harry? I would remind him that I know some embarrassing secrets of his he wouldn’t want spread around the school.” And that’s true. Blaise doesn’t say it’s only a first step, or that he would kill in defense of Harry if he had to, the way his mother has killed in defense of his father’s memory.

“I see.” Granger looks pleased with him. Blaise smiles back, and makes a little note not to tell her that he would do something to Professor Snape, as well. Granger respects authority and would think assaulting a teacher beyond the pale.

“I’m going to cast a Jelly-Legs Jinx,” he says, after a few more moments when Granger has been making the motion for the Shield Charm with her wand and looking more and more frustrated. “In two minutes. Ready?”

“No!” She shifts some of her hair out of the way and glares at Blaise as if it’s his fault. “Why is wordless magic so hard?”

Blaise smiles. “The incantation and the wand movement work together with the spell for most wizards. They come to think of them as the same thing. But really, they’re separate. What’s important is the _magic_. If you can command that, and separate it from the movement and words, you’ll see how much you can do.”

Granger’s mouth falls open a little. “You explained that a lot more clearly than Professor Snape.”

“He has his own methods of teaching,” Blaise says. Bland words can conceal a lot, another lesson his mother taught him. He nods. “And you have a minute and a half until I cast the Jelly-Legs Jinx.”

Granger nods back, but before she can start making the wand movement again, there’s a shriek from the other side of the classroom. Blaise turns at once. He would know the sound of that shriek anywhere. It’s what happens when someone decides to prank the potions that Malfoy uses on his hair.

He finds Malfoy flat on his back, a shimmering net of white light around him. It’s one of the defensive spells that Mother taught Harry, and had him practice before he had his voice back. Which means he cast it nonverbally. Blaise grins.

“ _Mr._ Potter!” Snape is stalking towards Harry. Blaise finds himself judging the distance between himself and Snape, and sighs. He needs to calm down and remember that Harry is capable of defense, too. “What did I say about nonverbal magic?”

Harry half-shrugs. “I did cast that wordlessly, sir. And you said that we should cast minor hexes and jinxes at the shields.” He glares at Malfoy, his stance immediately shifting. Blaise smiles. Of course, he’s biased, but in his opinion, he doesn’t understand why people continue to oppose Harry, when he looks like that. “He was casting the Cruciatus Curse.”

Blaise tenses. He turns deliberately to face Malfoy. In the classroom of gasps and flailing hands, it catches his fellow Slytherin’s attention. Blaise lets the mask across his eyes drop, and sees Malfoy flinch from the promise of pain.

That doesn’t have to happen if he does certain things, though. For example, Professor Snape is laughing like an idiot at the idea that Draco Malfoy cast the Cruciatus Curse.

“An Unforgivable, in the _classroom_? Simply accusing the son of a prominent politician of such a crime is something in which the Ministry will be very interested, Mr. Potter. One hundred points from—”

“I did, sir.”

There’s silence that floods the classroom with a deep, delicious coolness, and makes Blaise conceal another smile. He sees Harry flick a suspicious glance at him. Blaise meets it with his own innocence. Harry might not believe that, but he isn’t going to raise the possibility in the midst of all this.

“Mr. Malfoy…” It sounds as if Snape has lost his breath somewhere and is never going to find it again.

“I—I wanted to test the strength of Potter’s shield.” Malfoy tries to shift, but the net follows him, sparkling brightly. Harry flicks his wand and dismisses it. Malfoy looks around at the staring faces and then down at the floor. “I thought an Unforgivable Curse would be the right way to do it. If he’s really as powerful as everyone says, I mean.”

More silence. Blaise does think it’s interesting that Malfoy chose that argument, and that it brought a slight tinge of color to Snape’s cheeks. He wonders if Harry’s power is one argument that Snape has been using to try and convince Malfoy to turn away from the Dark Lord.

Never mind if it is. Blaise has much more persuasive arguments at the tip of his tongue.

“You should not have done such a thing, Mr. Malfoy.” Snape speaks slowly. “You will have detention with me for tonight, I believe. And—” He looks as though he’s on the verge of a heart attack. “Two points from Slytherin.”

“Oi! That’s _illegal_ , and you were going to take _one hundred_ points from Harry just for telling the truth—”

“Twenty points from Gryffindor for insolence, Weasley!” Snape looks a lot more cheerful now. “I will decide what constitutes grounds for detention and point-taking in my classroom. Or do you want to argue that?” he adds in a purr as all of them see Weasley’s mouth opening again.

Weasley only gapes like a fish for a second before he closes his mouth and glowers. That’s not of his own free will, though. Blaise is sure that he heard Granger whisper “ _Silencio_ ” under her breath a moment ago.

Snape sighs as though they’ve ruined his day by refusing to let him take more points from Gryffindor, and then splits them up into different partners, this time not objecting when Blaise reaches out to draw Harry with him. He’s too busy dragging Malfoy towards the far side of the classroom to snarl at him. Blaise would like to eavesdrop on them, but right now, he’s more concerned about Harry.

“Are you all right?’ he asks softly. He scans Harry to make sure that he isn’t hiding cuts or anything, although he thinks that none of Malfoy’s attempted spells landed.

“Sure. Tell you Mum thanks for the lessons, though.”

“You can tell her thanks yourself. Or didn’t you realize that she wanted you to write to her after we got back to Hogwarts?”

Harry looks as though someone has slapped him. “I—Blaise, no, I didn’t. I just never had any relatives to send owls to, you know?”

“I realize that.” Blaise doesn’t enjoy thinking about the Muggles, so he doesn’t. He smiles at Harry instead. “And I know that you cast the Restraining Net nonverbally, so come over here and help me explain wordless magic to Granger.”

Harry laughs. There’s a surging brightness in his voice and smile that Blaise could stand to watch every day.

But he only shows his appreciation with a quick trailing of his hand down Harry’s shoulder for the moment, and then turns around to walk back towards Granger. He knows how to behave in a classroom far better than “Professor” Snape.

*

“What did you do to Malfoy?” Harry whispers to Blaise a week later, when they’re outside Defense and he can actually see the way Malfoy hunches his shoulders and avoids looking at him _or_ Blaise, and flinches when a touch of their robes might bring them into contact.

“What makes you think I did something to him?”

“He wasn’t flinching that way right after I accused him of using the Cruciatus, or even when Snape talked to him!”

“So untrusting, my love.”

“With good reason,” Harry snaps, and then sighs to himself when he sees the way Blaise’s face darkens. Sometimes he wants to go back in time and change the way he grew up with the Dursleys just to make sure that Blaise never looks like that again. “Listen, Blaise, I really do appreciate you standing up for me, but I meant what I said about you not interfering in my life.”

“Malfoy did something _illegal_. And he was stupid enough to get caught. All I did was encourage him to stay away from you.”

“Really.”

“Yes.” Blaise catches his hand and squeezes it once. “I won’t lie to you, love. It’s true that I threatened him with blackmail, but I didn’t curse him and I didn’t give him a gift like the one I gave you last year. I promise. You can’t expect me to stand back and do nothing when he attacks you that blatantly and might have got away with it. You can’t.”

Harry nods reluctantly. He knows that. After the stories about Blaise’s mother marrying and murdering the men who were involved in murdering Blaise’s father, he knows how seriously the Zabinis take love. Not to mention the “gift” Blaise is referring to, which killed Umbridge.

And although it’s not the sort of thing he can admit to Ron and Hermione, let alone Dumbledore…Harry kind of likes that someone cares for him that much. He wouldn’t want to let Blaise take over his life any more than he would let anyone else, but he’s always craved someone to love him as deeply as the Weasleys love Ron and Ginny, or Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon love Dudley.

He’s not exactly innocent, either, since he’s the one who used the “gift” to murder Umbridge.

“Okay,” he tells Blaise, and they start to walk away from the classroom. “I know what kind of bloke you are, and I fell in love with you anyway.”

Blaise won’t show it here, in front of other people, but his dark eyes are deep and glowing, and it seems his face is much the same. Despite having his mother, and for part of his life his father, Harry knows Blaise yearned for someone to love him in that same way.

And Harry has, now, not only the chance to be this beloved, but also the chance to make someone else feel the same way.

He has _never_ been so happy.

*

“Professor Snape tells me there was an unfortunate incident in his classroom, Harry.”

Harry actually has to think about what Dumbledore means, because it’s been a month now since the mess with Malfoy. He’s been busy with Blaise, and his friends, and studying for NEWTS next year, and in general feeling relieved that Voldemort isn’t stalking his every move anymore.

“Do you mean the time Malfoy cast a Cruciatus Curse at me, sir?” he finally asks. He refused tea when he first came up to the office, and he does again now that Dumbledore is pushing it at him. He looks around instead. The books on the shelves, for the first time, interest him more than the little whirring silver instruments Dumbledore has everywhere, although the most interesting thing in the office is still Fawkes, who chirps cheerfully at him.

“Yes. Professor Snape says that you defended yourself with rather advanced nonverbal magic.”

“I learned it this summer, sir. It turns out that being unable to speak English was good for _some_ things.”

Dumbledore stares at him. Harry only smiles blandly back, and doesn’t meet his eyes. He’s sure that sooner or later, Dumbledore will say why he brought him up here, and it can’t be to discuss something that happened back in September.

“I feel as if I do not know you at all, Harry,” Dumbledore finishes with a little sigh. He turns back to his own tea, and Harry wonders for a second if Dumbledore wants to see something in the tea leaves, the way Trelawney is always trying to do.

(Well, Harry assumes that she’s still trying to do that. On Mrs. Zabini’s insistence, he dropped Divination. It’s too late for him to join the Ancient Runes class, the way she wanted him to, but he’ll make do with private tutoring).

“Maybe you don’t, sir.”

“Why did you change so much?”

That makes it sound as though Dumbledore wants to know, but Harry doesn’t know if it’s true. He answers as though the Headmaster is sincere, though. He still doesn’t believe in his malice the way Blaise and Mrs. Zabini do. “Because I had a curse on me that meant almost everyone rejected me, sir. And I was furious and in despair. I thought I’d have to die to remove it. And then I found out about the Horcrux and thought I’d have to die to remove _that_. I finally stopped caring about whether I offended the sensibilities of all these people who wanted to hide behind me. That’s the difference.”

“I—never knew—it makes you sound as though you were considering suicide.”

“I was considering self-sacrifice, to remove the Horcrux, yes. And please don’t act as though you find the thought abhorrent, sir,” Harry adds, when Dumbledore gives him a horrified look. “You‘re the one who told me that I would have to die to remove the Horcrux.”

“I never meant for you to commit suicide.”

Harry rolls his eyes, and doesn’t care that Dumbledore sees it. “Self-sacrifice is essentially the same thing, sir. Was there something else you wanted to ask me, or can I go back to studying Ancient Runes now?”

“I wanted to know if you had considered the vow that I wanted you to make, Mr. Potter, so that I can share some of the secrets with you that I have guarded.”

“I’ve decided that I don’t want to know. It would probably only depress me. So I won’t make the vow, sir.”

Dumbledore makes a low sound of pain. “There are important reasons for why the quest to destroy the remainder of the Horcruxes should belong to you, Mr. Potter.”

“Why?” Harry asks, and only nods when he sees that Dumbledore has no intention of answering. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s simply not something I’m interested in taking on without more information, which you won’t give me.” He stands up. “Thank you for inviting me to your office, but please don’t do it again.”

Dumbledore watches him the entire time he walks across the office, and Fawkes trills sadly. But he doesn’t come after Harry to convince him to return, either.

Harry shoots one smile over his shoulder, aimed at Fawkes, not Dumbledore, before he closes the door of the office softly behind him.

*

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Did I say you did?”

“You’re hovering at my shoulder,” Harry says in some irritation as he and Blaise walk out of the entrance hall doors and towards the cave in the hills where Sirius met Harry once before.

“Say that I want to see the expression on Black’s face when he talks to you about Dumbledore’s behavior.” Blaise shrugs, adjusts the scarf around his neck, and then turns and casts a Warming Charm on Harry’s own scarf.

“I could have done that.”

“But you didn’t.”

Harry rolls his eyes and lets it go. Blaise is coming with him to speak to Sirius, and that’s pretty final, from the way he’s talking. Harry knows when to give up.

They reach the cave without incident, although part of the way they do use Disillusionment Charms so that no one thinks they’re trying to visit Hogsmeade without permission. Harry insists on Blaise dropping the charms before they get to the cave. He doesn’t want to make Sirius think they’re trying to sneak up on him or something. Sirius is paranoid enough about sneaky Slytherins as it is.

“Harry!” Sirius bounds out of the cave and hugs him, giving Blaise a stiff nod. “Are you all right?”

It actually takes Harry a long moment to remember that it’s Halloween today, and Sirius probably expects him to be upset over the deaths of his parents. He sighs a little and smiles at Sirius. “I’m doing all right.”

“Come in, come in.” Sirius ushers him into the cave, where he has some Transfigured or conjured chairs waiting and a small tea that Harry knows probably comes courtesy of Dobby. Sirius sits down and looks from him to Blaise. “Does he have to be here eavesdropping?”

“Eavesdropping is what happens when you don’t know someone is there,” Blaise responds calmly, taking the chair next to Harry and pouring himself a cup of tea that he then practically strangles with sugar. “You know I’m here, Black.”

Sirius sighs in a ridiculously pouty fashion—even Harry thinks that—and turns to Harry. “ _Fiiiiine_ ,” he says, drawing out the word. “Now, Harry, I read the letter where you told me what Dumbledore said about the Horcrux and the way he envisioned things playing out.”

That doesn’t sound good. Harry swallows against anxiety and receives a reassuring nod from Blaise. If something happens that means he can’t really have Sirius as his godfather again, Blaise is here for him. “And what do you think?”

“Well, there are reasons that he probably thought it would work. Not that Albus ever plays his hand openly. But considering the prophecy—”

“What prophecy?” Blaise and Harry speak at the same time, and Harry thinks later that there really isn’t much to choose from in their cold voices.

Sirius shrinks back in his chair. He looks as if he’d prefer to change into a dog and run out of the cave to avoid this whole conversation. Harry surreptitiously draws his wand, just in case.

“He _really_ didn’t tell you?” There’s even a dog-like whine at the end of Sirius’s sentence.

“No,” Harry says. “I want you to tell me.”

Sirius takes a deep breath. “There was a prophecy that said You-Know-Who would come after you. I don’t know what it says, I mean the exact wording. Albus told me this summer. I thought—he implied—maybe he only implied that he told you. But I thought you knew.”

Harry swallows. That would explain a lot of things, including why Voldemort was so obsessively determined to kill him. It’s not as though he knew that he would make Harry a Horcrux when he went after him that night, after all.

“Why would he keep that a secret?” Blaise asks the question that Harry would have got around to asking, once the lump in his throat melted. Harry is grateful that someone else did it for him, though. He reaches out and squeezes Blaise’s hand, and gets a squeeze back, but Blaise never takes his eyes off Sirius.

Sirius shuts his eyes. “Because one of You-Know-Who’s spies overheard the prophecy and carried part of it to him. Not the whole of it, Albus says. But enough that You-Know-Who figured out how to target you.”

“That still doesn’t make—”

Blaise shuts up so abruptly that Harry knows it wasn’t natural. Harry glances at him. Blaise has a quiet, concentrated fury about him that Harry has only ever seen when Blaise found out about Harry thinking he’d need to die to remove the Horcrux.

“Snape,” Blaise snarls softly.

“What about him?” But then Harry catches the drift of Blaise’s thoughts. “So you think that he was the one who overheard the prophecy? And then later he changed his mind and decided to spy for Dumbledore instead? But why?”

“That I can answer,” Sirius says. “I mean, Dumbledore didn’t tell me. But I know. Snape was friends with your mum for a long time. Then he called her a Mudblood when we were in our fifth year, and that was the end of it. But he would probably still have felt bad when he realized the prophecy targeted her.”

Harry closes his eyes. The world is dancing dizzily around him, and he needs some distance to cope with it.

Blaise puts a hand on his shoulder and then hands him a cup of tea. Harry drinks it and sighs. The flavor is stronger than usual. Maybe Blaise poured some sort of potion into it.

Harry can’t blame him for that, if so. He opens his eyes and focuses on Sirius again. “And you never thought to _tell_ me that Snape and my mum were friends?”

Sirius gives him a strange look. “Why would I? When would I? Snape hated you, so obviously it doesn’t matter if he is still upset about getting Lily killed. It doesn’t affect the way he treats you.”

“It would have something to do with how hard he tried to protect me, though, right?”

“Well, probably. Dumbledore made reference to some kind of vow Snape swore, but that was all he would say. He wouldn’t give me the particulars.” Sirius shrugs uncomfortably.

“A vow to protect Harry, it has to be,” Blaise says. He sounds like he’s thinking aloud, and Harry turns to admire his expression while he does that. It’s one of his favorite looks on Blaise. “That’s the reason that Dumbledore swore that Snape was innocent and gave him a job at Hogwarts, in return for that vow. And probably also a promise to go back and spy on the Dark Lord when he rose again. That’s the reason Dumbledore didn’t want to tell you without your own vow, Harry,” he adds quietly, turning towards Harry and holding his eyes. “He knew you would blame Snape, which of course you should, and probably strike back at him. But the prophecy makes Dumbledore believe that you should be the one to destroy the Horcruxes, because you’re prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord. You won’t be dying to remove the Horcrux now, so it must be some other way.”

Harry shudders. Yes, that sounds right. He doesn’t know if all the details are true, but it would explain why Dumbledore didn’t just tell him about the prophecy. He doesn’t want Harry to go out and curse Snape.

“So, Black,” Blaise says, and Harry feels more than sees him turn back to face Sirius. “Are you going to work with Albus anymore?”

Sirius is quiet, and Harry looks up. His buzzing brain makes him more prone to accept it if Sirius does declare that he stands with Dumbledore. He has so much to think about. Losing Sirius would no longer be the worst pain he’s suffered in his life.

Sirius swallows and says, “I still want to fight You-Know-Who.”

“Then work with the Order of the Phoenix,” Blaise says, with a light shrug that is amazing to Harry given how tightly he knows Blaise is wound. “But are you going to try and convince Harry to work with Dumbledore anymore? Or defend him? That’s mainly what we came here today to find out.”

Sirius takes a deep breath. “No. I’m not.”

Harry smiles at him, and Sirius reaches out and abruptly hugs him. “God, I wish I’d got to raise you,” he whispers into Harry’s ear. “I wish I hadn’t run off after Peter.”

“That’s all right, I forgave you for that a long time ago,” Harry says. He catches a glimpse of Blaise’s disapproving expression, but he ignores it. Blaise can have opinions on what Harry does and says, but he doesn’t get to control it.

Sirius leans back, and they have almost a nice tea after that, although Harry knows Blaise is silently criticizing the biscuits and the platters and everything else in his head. He doesn’t say it aloud, though, which is progress.

*

“Don’t do it.”

“Do what?” Blaise raises an eyebrow as Harry turns away from waving good-bye to his godfather. They’re not at the point in the path yet where they’ll need their Disillusionment Charms.

Harry narrows his eyes. He looks so formidable like this, jaw thrust out, that he rather takes Blaise’s breath away. “Take revenge on Snape. I know that you’re thinking about it. If anyone’s going to take revenge on him, it’ll be me, and for things like the way he treated Neville, too.”

Blaise hesitates. The urge to protect Harry is so strong. He did it last year, when he barely knew Harry, and Harry didn’t object to that.

Of course, Harry has also come a long way from the furious, frightened boy who was willing to use the crystals that would kill Umbridge just because he was worn down by her torture and the utter _ignorance_ of everyone else in the school.

“Fine,” Blaise relents. “But if you ever change your mind, let me know right away.”

Harry relaxes and smiles at him, and Blaise loses all sense of regret that Harry won’t agree to let Blaise protect him the way he deserves. He prefers Harry like this, brilliant of heart and mind and magic and mood.

And all _his_.

“Thank you,” Harry murmurs, and leans forwards to kiss him, and Blaise forgets regret altogether, just as Harry’s lips coax him into forgetting the chill wind touched with rain.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’ll come to the Burrow for Christmas, right, mate?”

“Just for Christmas Day itself,” Harry says, turning the page of his Charms book and frowning at the description of the Summoning Charm there. He _knows_ that isn’t right. If it’s wrong about something so simple that he learned in fourth year, what else is it wrong about?

A silence seems to settle over the Gryffindor table. Harry looks up, but he only looks at Ron. Dean has been passively friendly, Neville doesn’t seem to know what to make of Harry since his “return” from Italy, and Seamus still believes the lies that the _Prophet_ continues to print. Harry doesn’t owe them anything.

“What?” Harry adds. “I’m going to be in Florence most of the time, you know.”

“You didn’t tell us that.” Ron doesn’t look surprised, but his face is turning red.

“Sorry. I sort of assumed you’d assume I was, especially knowing what you know.” Harry hasn’t gone around announcing to everyone that Mrs. Zabini has custody of him now, although he hasn’t denied it to those who want to know, either. It’s amazing how many people would _rather_ gossip about him than just ask him something directly. “But Mrs. Zabini has permission for an International Portkey so I can visit Britain on Christmas.”

“I think it’s wonderful that Harry has a family to go to now,” Hermione says firmly. “Did I tell you that my parents and I are going back to France for the holidays? Mum thinks she’s discovered old relatives on her side there.”

Harry smiles gratefully at Hermione as she adds to the conversation. She just nods back, serenely, and then turns to answer some questions from Parvati about France and how long it takes to learn French.

“Things just keep changing,” Ron complains next to him.

“Sorry, mate, can’t help that,” Harry says. He glances back and forth between the pages of the Charms book, and then nods as he ferries another forkful of scrambled eggs to his plate. Yes, it _is_ wrong. He’s going to have to bring this to Professor Flitwick’s attention. Maybe it’s a mistake in this one book and not others, though.

“But did it have to change so fast?” Ron sighs and pokes his food, which makes Harry put the Charms book away and pay attention. Ron in a mood to refuse food is Ron in a _serious_ mood. “I just feel like one day everything was fine, and then things started changing.”

“It was _fine_ when I couldn’t speak English?” Harry makes his voice cool.

“No! I mean—I wanted that to change. But not anything else.”

Harry does understand. He claps Ron’s shoulder. “Listen, you’re still one of my best friends. But just being three Gryffindors together was never going to last forever. I couldn’t speak English last year, and I was furious most of the time. If it hadn’t been for Blaise, I don’t know what would have happened. He’s the reason I can talk now, and he’s the reason I’m happy now.”

Ron hesitates for a long second. Harry waits, honestly not sure what he wants to say.

“So you’re really not going to—you’re not the Boy-Who-Lived anymore.”

“I’ll always be your friend, Ron. I’ll always be the kid who survived the Killing Curse because of what my _mum_ did.” Harry doesn’t want to let people forget that, and Blaise is uniquely understanding of him wanting people to celebrate his mum more. “But no, I don’t think I’m Voldemort’s primary target anymore.” He’s not actually sure what Voldemort wants lately. He’s been pretty quiet, except for a few potential murders that could also be actual accidents.

“You’re not going to join the _old crowd_?” Ron hisses, his eyes flickering around.

“No.”

“But, mate—”

“If I could trust everybody, I would,” Harry tells him with a faint smile. “But I can’t, and that’s all there is to it. You know me, mate. I’m not inclined to trust adults that much anyway, and last year it got worse because they acted like they couldn’t find their arses with both hands.”

Ron laughs reluctantly, while Hermione turns around to scold both of them, Harry for language and Ron for laughing about it. Harry grins over how normal that is, and manages to catch Blaise’s eye across the Great Hall. Blaise lifts his goblet in salute.

Blaise was the one who told him that things with his best friends would be more normal than Harry worried they would be. He said they were great friends, and they would get used to things changing.

Once again, Blaise is right.

 _Not that I’m going to tell him that, he’s conceited enough already,_ Harry adds contentedly to himself.

*

“Harry, how you have grown!”

Blaise conceals a grin at the befuddled look on Harry’s face as Mother bends down to hug him. He really hasn’t grown, of course. But it’s the same thing that Mother often says to him, and she doesn’t want to leave Harry out.

And, of course, Harry has never been able to remember his parents. Blaise scowls. He has come up with plans to take vengeance on the Dursleys and Snape—if Harry ever allows him to—but he doesn’t know what to do about the Dark Lord.

“Uh, thanks, Mrs. Zabini,” Harry says, and frees himself from Mother’s embrace with a little practiced twist. It hurts Blaise’s heart to realize where that kind of motion probably comes from: freeing himself from much less tender embraces and holds.

“I told you that I would prefer to be called Hafsa, if you are not comfortable calling me Mother,” Mother says, and enchants Harry’s luggage and Blaise’s to float next to them.

“I, uh. Hafsa, then.” Harry’s face is bright red, but he does say it.

 _He finds refuge in formalities, even though he’s also one of the most informal people I know,_ Blaise thinks, catching Harry’s hand and sending him a reassuring smile. _He didn’t grow up with the same kind of confidence and poise that a lot of people did. He had to make his own._

“Thank you, Harry. Come along now.” Mother leads them to the alley where the International Portkey is set to go off, and Blaise tightens his arm around Harry’s waist when it starts. He knows that Harry doesn’t like Portkey travel much, probably as a remnant of that terrible Portkey cup in the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

Harry visibly relaxes once they’re in the villa, and goes off to claim his old room with every evidence of cheerfulness. Mother turns to Blaise at once. “Has he been settling in well? Please be truthful.”

“Harry isn’t in his letters?”

“He barely says anything, Blaise. I understand why, and I know it might take him years to feel comfortable with me. But I also want to make sure that there isn’t someone hurting him whose effects he’s attempting to downplay.”

“I don’t think so,” Blaise says slowly, thinking back over the past term. “He just shrugs off Professor Snape’s insults now, and his best friends accepted him back without prompting. Some of the Gryffindors glare at him. They never approach him, though. He knows his godfather is on his side, and that’s been the best thing of all for him.”

“And Professor Dumbledore?”

“He’s left Harry alone since October,” Blaise says, and he knows he’s being truthful. Harry wouldn’t hide that from him, even if he doesn’t feel comfortable writing to Mother about it. “He wanted Harry to swear a vow before he shared any information with him, and part of that vow would have meant Harry keeping dangerous secrets. Including the secrets about Professor Snape I already wrote to you about.”

“And Malfoy?”

“Nothing since I told him that the moment he tried to cast any kind of pain curse at Harry again, the whole school would know about the plush dragon he sleeps with. And worse.”

Mother chuckles. “Good. I expect you to let me know the moment that changes, of course.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“And I expect you to tell me if something _more_ needs to be done. I am sympathetic to your desire to handle danger by yourself, but I will tolerate no threats to my son or my son-in-law. It should never have to advance as far as it did last year, with the actual torture of a Blood Quill.”

“Mother, you didn’t know that Harry would be your son-in-law then,” Blaise has to point out. Sometimes Mother acts as if Blaise should be able to see the future, but if Blaise has any talent in that direction, it’s never revealed itself to him.

“Only because I did not know did I allow it to get that far.”

Blaise nods. He completely agrees with that. Harry suffered in the past, and they can’t do anything about that because time travel is not something the Zabini magic has perfected and Harry doesn’t want them taking vengeance on people for him. But they can protect him from the harm that might arise in the future.

“We will take care of him now.” Mother passes her hand through his hair, and smiles at him. “I will not allow him to suffer as your father suffered. Or you, as I suffered.”

Mother rarely speaks of Father. Blaise curls nearer to her, and they stay there until they hear Harry calling for Blaise from the top of the stairs. Blaise reluctantly steps away from his mother and glances back, once, at her, as he goes to see his lover.

“Whatever you need to keep him safe,” Mother answers his unspoken question, “you will have.”

Blaise smiles. He knows, but it’s always nice to hear it aloud.

*

Harry sighs a little as yet another present floats over to him. Blaise and Mrs. Zabini follow a custom that she says was in her family when she was a little girl: there’s three presents for three days, then four presents for four days, ending the day before Christmas. This is his fourth present of the day.

Harry tried to be thoughtful and careful about what he bought them. That’s not really the problem. The problem is that even as part of him squirms with delight at being spoiled, another part feels that they shouldn’t be spending _this_ much money on him.

Mrs. Zabini—Harry is trying to remember to call her “Hafsa” aloud, although it’s hard—smiles at him, and seems to guess his thoughts. “All you must do, Harry, is remember that the vast majority of my fortune didn’t originally belong to me. I rather enjoy spending the money of those who murdered my husband or profited from his death on my son’s lover.” She winks. “This particular gift comes from the vault of a man who was personally disgusted by gay people.”

“Oh. Um. Thank you.” Harry unwraps the gift, and tries not to be hesitant about it. Blaise is already at his side, leaning in with interest, which suggests that he doesn’t know what his mother got Harry, either.

It turns out to be a plain wooden stick that looks a lot like a wand, but it has no features, not even any grain to the wood. Harry turns it over curiously before glancing at Mrs. Zabini for an explanation. It’s not like there are instructions in the package the way there would be with a Muggle toy.

And somehow, he doesn’t think that Mrs. Zabini would give him toys, although she has given him some beautiful decorations that can hang on curtains, so he can put them up in his bed here or at Hogwarts.

“Of course, I forgot that you wouldn’t know a holder wand when you see one.” Mrs. Zabini’s smile is soft, and she reaches out to trace her fingers down Harry’s temple. They’re seated around the cozy little table in what Mrs. Zabini calls the breakfast nook. She let Harry and Blaise wear their pyjamas, and she’s dressed in a more casual robe than Harry’s ever seen, with just a little indigo embroidery, although her hair is still up beneath a white silken scarf. “It’s meant as a second line of defense, my dear.”

“Even though it doesn’t have a core?” Harry is getting more used to wands and all aspects of magic under Mrs. Zabini’s tutelage, and he can feel that this stick is too light.

Mrs. Zabini nods. “Instead of the core, you fill the wand with a spell of your choosing. It can be defensive or offensive. Then you carry the wand, and if you’re Disarmed or otherwise trapped, perhaps magically exhausted, you can break the holder wand, and that spell will stream out and do as you tell it to do. Shield you, or blow something up, or kill someone.”

Harry swallows. “How can it hold a spell if it’s non-magical itself? Wouldn’t the spell destroy it in the first place?”

“No,” Mrs. Zabini says, “because of a spell cast on the trees that they grow them on. I want you to think carefully about what spell you’ll put into this one, Harry. Make sure that you pick one that would serve you well in a tight spot.”

“You think I’ll be in one now that I have you and Blaise guarding me?” Harry asks, but the joke falls flat. Mrs. Zabini gives him a solemn look and leans across the table to press her fingers gently into his cheek.

“I don’t think the Dark Lord has given up yet.”

*

“Harry?”

Blaise’s voice is deep and uncertain. Harry leans his head around his bedroom door. Blaise is biting his lip and staring at his wand, turning it over and over in his hands. Harry pads out to join him, smiling a little as Blaise’s eyes skim over his bare chest. Harry’s only wearing his pyjama bottoms, since he was getting ready to go to bed.

“What is it?”

Blaise looks up at him. “I can Apparate now. I was still a bit uncertain at first, but I’ve corrected the last of the difficulties.”

Harry let his smile widen. “Congratulations.”

Blaise turns fully to face him. His eyes are bright, but they dull a second later. Harry tenses. He’s afraid that some shattering revelation is going to follow, although at least he’s managed to convince himself that every time Blaise looks sorrowful, it doesn’t mean he’s about to tell Harry he doesn’t love him any longer.

“We could go to the villa that we spent time at last summer,” Blaise whispers.

It takes a minute for Harry to remember what he means, and when he does, he feels hot blushes break out all down his neck. They went to that villa last summer because Blaise didn’t want to have sex with Harry in his mum’s house.

“I—you’re sure?” Of course Harry wants to be with Blaise; they didn’t get enough time together this term, and there’s only so many times that Harry felt comfortable sneaking down to the Slytherin common room in his Invisibility Cloak. But from the way that Blaise is tense and keeps turning his wand around, there’s something more to this, something he hasn’t mentioned.

“I am.” Blaise meets his gaze hard on and says, in a sudden exhalation of air, “Come with me. _Be_ with me, Harry.”

Harry nods. “Tonight? Did you tell your mum where we’re going so she doesn’t rip apart the country looking for us?”

“Yes, and she’s carefully pretending not to know anything about _why_ we’re going.” Blaise tries to give him a commanding look, but it comes out pleading. “Come with me?”

Harry leans over and put his hand in Blaise’s. “Yes.”

*

The waterfall in the bedroom of the villa where Blaise wants to have sex with Harry is as beautiful as ever, the soft sound soothing. Blaise stands in front of it and listens to it, rather than the sounds of Harry preparing in the bathroom.

Now he wonders if he was too quick. He and Harry will have years, after all. They could wait. Harry chose to come with him anyway, but Harry tries so hard, all the time, to make everyone happy. What if he was only saying he wants this because he knew how much it meant to Blaise, rather than because he _wants_ to?

Blaise shudders at the thought. He would rather wait five years than have Harry unwilling.

But the impulse that made him ask Harry in the first place is still with him. It started earlier today, when Mother gave Harry the holder wand and told him that she doubts the Dark Lord has given up. It was actually easy for Blaise to ignore the Dark Lord for a while, because he hasn’t tried to kill Harry in months and the attacks are distant. But what if the Dark Lord is only lying low while he plans, and then he’ll come roaring back and do his best to kill Harry?

Blaise is proud of how much magic he knows, how much skill he has for his age, but precisely because he knows himself this well, he knows that he can’t stand in front of the Dark Lord. He’ll be blown away if he tries. Harry might stand a chance, but only because of the incredible luck that has saved him other times, or the sacrificial magic that his mother created and he told Blaise about. He’ll lose in a straight duel.

They might not have years, for all that Blaise wants to think they will. What if he’s been fooling himself? What happens if they never have anything but these few months, for both of them?

Blaise wants to grab hold of Harry and never let go. That’s what Mother did, how she lived, in the short years she had with Father before his murder. And that’s why she gave her blessing when Blaise asked for it this evening, after looking into his face for a long, silent moment.

“You need this to bring back your peace, and to bring joy to both yourself and Harry,” she murmured. “Yes, go.”

Blaise turns around as the bathroom door opens and Harry steps out. He’s naked, and although it’s far from the first time they’ve seen each other like that, his bravery in looking like that in front of someone still dressed in robes takes Blaise’s breath away. Harry is blushing, his skin so brilliant a pink that Blaise is reminded of how pale he normally looks. But his cock is hard, and his eyes, full of desire, fixed on Blaise.

“I want you,” Harry says, and then stops there, as if he doesn’t know how to go on.

 _More likely, he needs me to show that I do, too,_ Blaise thinks, and begins to undo the buttons of the dark blue robes that his mother gave him for Christmas.

He thought Harry might offer to help, but instead, he stands in one place, his breath fast and shallow, and watches as Blaise’s skin is revealed. Blaise doesn’t think it’s his imagination that Harry’s eyes grow wider and darker, and that his cock bobs. He even takes a sudden step forwards, as if he’s going to reach out, but stops before he can lift his hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

Those simple words fall into the uneasy mood of the bedroom and create ripples that relax Blaise. He smiles at Harry and begins to undress a bit more teasingly, shrugging the robes off his shoulders with sinuous movements. Harry’s eyes are so huge that it looks as though they might be half his face by the time Blaise sheds the robes, and the pants he’s wearing underneath them.

“Did you prepare yourself?” Blaise asks, crossing the few meters of plush carpet between them to take Harry’s hand.

“Yeah.” Harry’s voice is hoarse, and he’s looking at Blaise’s chest instead of his face, which pleases Blaise rather than otherwise. “Yeah, I—did.”

“Good,” Blaise whispers. “I do know some spells that I’ll still use, and of course I want you to stop me at once and tell me if it hurts.”

Harry looks up and shakes himself, settling back into a slightly more normal mindset. “You don’t think I can take some pain?”

“I don’t want to cause you _any_.”

Harry loses the offended Gryffindor persona a minute later, and bites his lip. “Of course,” he says, so softly that Blaise almost can’t hear him. “I—of course. I love you, Blaise.” And he leans in to kiss him.

Blaise takes his shoulders, and kisses him back, and guides him towards the bed.

*

Now that he’s actually on his back in the bed underneath Blaise, Harry can feel his nervousness returning, hammering like a Snitch’s wings in his throat and chest. Blaise is going to take his virginity.

 _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he tells himself a second later. He’s had sex with Blaise plenty of times before. They never went this far, sure, but that was mainly because of lack of time and space and privacy at Hogwarts. Even the Room of Requirement never felt like it was enough.

But although Harry is nervous, he also wouldn’t give up the sight of Blaise heading towards him and sliding a slow, reverent hand down Harry’s chest, to his groin and his cock. He tilts his head back with a long sigh when Blaise’s hand wraps around his shaft.

“I promise that I’ll be gentle,” Blaise whispers.

The words make Harry smile. “Yeah, I know. You promised already.”

“It’s true.” Blaise leans back with a smile and then climbs onto the bed and kneels next to Harry. He waves his wand with the most handsome expression of concentration on his face. Harry is leaning up to kiss him when he feels the spells take effect, and gasps. Suddenly he’s—well, he’s cold and loose and slick, and Blaise reaches down and glides two fingers into him like it’s nothing, something that Harry knew he wouldn’t have been able to do just a little while ago.

“Sorry that it feels unsettling,” Blaise murmurs. “It’s like that for everyone at first.”

Harry only nods, squinting his eyes a little. The fingers are slowly pumping in and out of him, and it doesn’t feel as painful or strange as he expected. On the other hand, he doesn’t know what it’s going to be like to have Blaise’s cock in him, and he doesn’t know if he’ll—

“Found it,” Blaise says a second before pleasure turns on Harry’s nerves like all the candles in the Great Hall coming to life at once.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry gasps, and he slams his eyes shut so he can concentrate on the sensation himself. God, Blaise is finding all sorts of things Harry never knew existed. He begins to force himself back onto Blaise’s fingers. Blaise laughs quietly and holds them stiff, and Harry keeps on pushing himself back. It’s wonderful, although after a few seconds the pleasure dims as Blaise moves his hand.

“What are you doing?” Harry demands, snapping his eyes open again so he can glare at Blaise. “Bring them back.”

“Imagine how good it’s going to feel when something bigger is in there,” Blaise says. He’s stroking his cock slowly. It gleams with a slick sheen that it definitely didn’t have a few minutes ago, either. One of the spells Blaise cast must have been lube on there.

Harry nods. He just hopes that Blaise will fuck him and hit his prostate—which he knew about but never experienced before—on every stroke. It would be unbearable to know that he could feel that good and not get to.

And now, he kind of wonders why he and Blaise waited as long as they did. Why was he so afraid of something that felt so good? He even knew it would, from some discreet reading he did. And he loves Blaise. He trusts him.

But from the way Blaise’s hands shake as he reaches out and grips Harry’s hips, Harry’s not the only one who might have had some problems with nervousness. Harry reaches up and trails his fingers gently down Blaise’s neck. “I love you,” he whispers in reassurance.

Blaise nods, and slides in.

*

Only the fact that Harry looks as if he’s caught in a fireworks display of pleasure, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping with delight, enables Blaise to go on. He simply doesn’t want to hurt Harry, but he’s also read that pain is all but inevitable with the first time between two men.

Harry has had enough spells cast on him, though, and the lube that he added to himself in the bathroom, that maybe he’s really not hurting. He squirms around and tries to get more of Blaise’s cock like he’s not, anyway. And then he looks up when Blaise is part of the way inside and raises an eyebrow and asks, “That’s _all_?”

Blaise scowls at him and pushes the rest of the way inside. Harry gasps, but he’s also shifting his hips with a thoughtful expression.

“Good enough, I suppose.”

“I’ll show you _good enough_ ,” Blaise says darkly, caught up in the spirit of competition that Harry doesn’t bring into their bedroom all the time but which is delicious when he does, and then moves the way he’s dreamed of doing.

Harry clasps his hands and leans up to kiss him, although as it happens, it’s while Blaise is in the midst of a thrust, so their chins bump more than anything. Harry laughs, but not in a mocking way, and kisses his chin instead.

“Come on, fuck me,” he says, and lifts his hips in invitation.

Blaise does, still dazed, still in a wonder that he attracted someone like _this_. Harry beams at him, and his eyes sparkle, and he makes joking remarks that have stutters and cut-off breaths in the middle of them, and it’s all so _Harry_ that Blaise is laughing himself, before the end.

Their orgasms catch them both by surprise. Harry hisses and squeezes down on Blaise in a marvelous, intolerable way, coming all over his chest. Blaise has exactly two frantic heartbeats to feel smug before he comes himself, and fills Harry up, and the warmth leaving him makes him feel even dizzier than he has.

“Wow,” Harry says contentedly, as Blaise drops straight down on his chest.

“Yeah,” Blaise breathes out, and then kisses Harry again, his hands curling into Harry’s hair, then along his shoulders, down his ribs, feeling sweat-soaked curls and slick muscle and delicate skin, all of it.

He has Harry, here, now, in this moment. If he never has more than that, still, they were here, and no one can change the past so that they weren’t.

And in this moment, Blaise is breath-stoppingly, heart-scorchingly, world-shatteringly happy.

*

“Harry, my boy. I’d like to speak to you.”

Harry raises one eyebrow. He’s been at the Weasleys’ for about an hour, and there’s still gifts to open and jokes to listen to and pranks to watch out for, but Dumbledore has come through the Floo and wants to talk to him, so Harry supposes he has to. He gets up and follows Dumbledore into the kitchen.

The moment the door closes behind them, Dumbledore waves his wand, and Vanishes the illusion spell on his right arm. Harry blinks. This time, the blackness has crawled all the way up towards his shoulder.

“What happened, sir?”

“I found and destroyed another Horcrux,” Dumbledore answers tightly. “This one was hidden within Hogwarts. The protections on it were not of the same order as those on the first one I found, but still vicious.”

Harry sighs and looks up at him. “You’re not going to survive this curse, are you?”

“No. Which is why I have come to ask you, one more time, to join the quest, and destroy them for me.”

“No,” Harry says. “If you can’t destroy them without being wounded, they’d kill me. I won’t do that to the people who love me.” Faces swarm through his head, and two of them aren’t white. “If it’s actually easy to destroy them with the proper precautions, then you should be able to take them, or tell other people.”

Dumbledore closes his eyes. “There is no one else I trust as much.”

That would touch Harry if it didn’t come across to him as just another manipulation tactic. He shakes his head. “No, sir. Tell Professor Snape, or Tonks, or anyone else who’s part of the Order. But not me.” He turns towards the kitchen door.

“Have you considered that Voldemort will almost certainly come after you?”

“I know. But that’s not the same thing as having to destroy the Horcruxes.”

“There are many things you do not know.”

Harry’s tongue burns with the temptation to say that he _does_ know about the prophecy, but he won’t betray Sirius like that. He only shakes his head at Dumbledore and says, “Since I didn’t have to die to remove the Horcrux, I choose life,” then walks out and back into the hustle and bustle of gifts and lights and noise and music and life.

He’ll return this evening to a villa in Florence that isn’t as bright or noisy, but is still a living place.

He’s had enough of death.


	4. Chapter 4

“And he didn’t even tell me what the damn Horcruxes that he’d destroyed _were_. He has to keep it so close all the time, like everyone’s going to betray him if he doesn’t—”

Blaise lets one hand rest on Harry’s forehead, and Harry closes his eyes. The scar there has turned into just an ordinary scar now, a bit of rough skin, and Blaise moves his fingers slowly over it. Harry yawns and stretches out his legs. They’re in the garden of Mrs. Zabini’s villa, and it’s a milder day than anything in Britain right now, with soft sun.

“Does it really matter?” Blaise asks, in a soft rumble.

“No.” Harry turns and presses his face into the corner of Blaise’s robe. He’s had his head in Blaise’s lap for the past hour, and it just seems so normal and right and accepted. He never wants to move away. “Only that I don’t understand him.”

“You don’t need to.” Blaise’s fingers seek out the back of Harry’s neck and massage it, and Harry gives a slight gasp and relaxes. “Don’t think about him anymore. Think, instead, of how we’re going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, and you’ll work hard on your Defense spells so Snape doesn’t find anything to criticize, and I’m going to start teaching you Italian…”

“You are?” Harry pops an eye open, although since it’s entirely hidden by cloth, it doesn’t make much difference and he doesn’t think Blaise notices.

“Of course. Even if we split our time between Britain and Italy after we graduate from Hogwarts, I am going to make sure that you can speak it properly. And it means that you don’t have to feel confined to the villas or always make sure Mother and I are with you if you want to go outside.”

Harry reaches up and clasps Blaise’s wrist. He hasn’t said anything about feeling trapped, because honestly he hasn’t, but that’s Blaise’s genius, anticipating ahead of time that he might and making sure he doesn’t have to.

Blaise drops his head and leaves a kiss on Harry’s cheek. “I’ll get you a book of Italian poetry when the spring comes. We can translate it together.”

Harry sighs, and feels as though contentment has seeped into his body along with the sunlight.

*

Harry waits uneasily by the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. It’s midnight, long after most of the others have gone to sleep, and Harry is a little worried that one of the prefects will unexpectedly happen downstairs and order him to bed. But he has to do this. He has to know. Sirius sent him an urgent message saying he wanted to talk to Harry, and only Harry. Harry agreed, although he’s going to remind Sirius that he’ll just tell Blaise everything later anyway.

The fireplace abruptly lights, and Harry sighs a little. “Sirius?” he whispers.

“Hey, Harry.” Sirius grins at him. He doesn’t seem upset or hurt or sick. Part of Harry that’s always waiting for disaster relaxes—partially. “I wanted to let you know that I found and destroyed a Horcrux!”

“You did?” Harry blinks. That’s the last news he expected. “Did Dumbledore finally tell someone else where they are and how to find one?”

Sirius shakes his head. “I actually wouldn’t have known about it at all, but—I’ve been thinking a lot about our last conversation.”

Harry nods slowly. He just hopes that conversation didn’t have _bad_ consequences. He’s so used to people not listening to him, not doing what he says, or deciding that they disbelieve him and going and doing something stupid instead.

“I realized that I wasn’t thinking much,” Sirius says with a gusty sigh, and his head bobs around for a second like he’s stretching out in front of the fireplace to get more comfortable. “I’d let Albus do all my thinking for me. I didn’t write good letters to you last summer. I thought too little about what it meant that you had that curse on you and Albus _could_ have helped you, but didn’t. And I looked at myself and didn’t much like what I saw.”

“Okay,” Harry says. That sounds positive. He’s almost glad that Blaise isn’t here right now, because he would be pointing out all the ways it’s not.

“And one of those things I changed was the treatment of Kreacher.” Sirius wrinkles his nose. “He was dirty, but sure, I was dirty when I was living on the run, too. And he worships my mother, but I used to do the same thing when I was a kid, before I realized how awful she was. So I started trying to treat him more kindly.”

Harry smiles a little. “Good. That should have happened a long time ago.”

Sirius doesn’t dismiss him, just nods. “And then one day, he showed me this locket that he said Regulus risked his life to get—”

“Regulus?” Harry knows Sirius has talked about that name before, but the memory is distant for Harry, buried underneath all the things that have happened to him in the past eighteen months. “Your brother?”

“Yeah. The Death Eater. Except now it turns out he’s the Death Eater who turned on Voldemort in the end.”

“Wow,” is all Harry can think of to say. He thought Snape was the only one, and Snape was a special case, since he doesn’t really bother not _acting_ like a Death Eater from day to day. “He found the Horcrux?”

Sirius nods. “I don’t know how, but he did something that meant he switched the real Horcrux with a fake locket, and then he told Kreacher to leave him there and escape with the Horcrux. Kreacher wanted to destroy it to honor Regulus’s memory, but he didn’t know how. Of course nothing he tried worked. House-elves command powerful magic, but it’s usually not that Dark.”

“How did _you_ destroy it?”

“A spell that you don’t need to know the name of—” Sirius catches Harry’s eye, and abruptly grins. “All right, yes, you do. I should know better than to think I could get away with that. It’s called Fiendfyre. A powerful Dark curse where the flames are sentient and try to escape your control all the time. I doubt I could have controlled it without my rage at what happened to little Reggie powering me. And without the Dark Arts training that I received when I was a kid, too.”

Harry whistles a little. He’ll have to ask Blaise about Fiendfyre, but tell him the context, so that he doesn’t think Harry wants to use it for himself. “So how many Horcruxes does that make, now, with the diary in second year and the one Mrs. Zabini took out of me? And the two Dumbledore destroyed—”

“Five, as far as I know. Which means there should be two left.”

Harry nods. It’s not like he knew that for sure, although it makes sense. Seven is a powerful magical number and Voldemort would probably want to imitate it when he made the Horcruxes. “Any ideas?”

“I do have one lead, actually. I remember the last time I saw my cousin Bellatrix before she and I were on opposite sides of the war officially. Some distant cousin’s wedding.” Sirius frowns. “She was bragging about something You-Know-Who asked her to guard, without actually saying it was him. But Bella couldn’t be subtle to save her life. She peppered her speeches with all these hints.”

“Wow,” Harry says again, blinking. “And where do you think she put it?”

“If I had to guess? In the Lestrange vault at Gringotts. I’ve already looked in all the ones available to members of the Black family, and there’s nothing like that there.”

“Can you even get into the Lestrange vault?”

“I might have an idea.” Sirius’s grin is wicked. “Leave it up to me, though, Harry. You said you didn’t want to be involved in the war, and I completely understand. This is _fun_ for me, though.”

Harry has to shake his head. “I’m mostly worried that you’re going to get hurt trying to destroy them. They hurt Dumbledore pretty badly, and he’s a powerful wizard.”

Sirius’s mouth tightens. “The first Horcrux he tried to destroy was a ring, and he tried to _put it on_ , the idiot. That’s why it could injure him so badly.”

Harry stares. “He didn’t tell you why? I mean, why he wanted to put the ring on so badly?”

Sirius makes a disgusted sound. “Of course not. And he wouldn’t tell me exactly what the second one was, but he did say it was an artifact he wanted to preserve. I think he probably tried to destroy the Horcrux without destroying the object, and that meant he was more vulnerable to one of the protection spells catching hold of him.”

Harry shakes his head. “So it was never all that dangerous, unless you could get tempted by them.”

Sirius smiles grimly. “That’s one good thing about the combination of my childhood and going to prison. There’s no way I’m going to be tempted by any of the Dark Arts objects I come across, no matter what they are.”

“Good,” Harry says, and looks him in the eye. “I still want you to be careful. And I’m telling Blaise about this.”

“I will, and I don’t care.” Sirius winks at him, and then the green flames billow up and end the conversation. Harry leans back on his heels and sighs a little. The war against Voldemort might really be over soon, and without any of his interference.

It will be wonderful, if that’s true.

*

“Did you notice that there’s something wrong with Malfoy?”

“Isn’t that my line?” Harry murmurs from where he’s studying the scroll that Mrs. Zabini sent to him. He sent her a bunch of Ancient Runes questions, and she replied with the answers, as well as more questions that she wants him to divine the answers to and send back to her for marking.

At the silence around him, Harry looks up. Ron and Hermione are exchanging serious looks, and after a second, Ron nods to her. Hermione bites her lip and then turns around to face Harry, rearranging her hands on her lap.

“Malfoy has been really pale lately,” she says. “And spending a lot of time on the seventh floor near the Room of Requirement. And it’s only happened a few times, but I’ve caught him clutching his left arm, like it hurts.”

“Oh.” Harry blinks. He supposes that is new, although he assumed all along that Malfoy was going to get the Dark Mark. “Well, probably like father, like son.”

“But he doesn’t _have_ to be.” Hermione’s face is earnest. “We could show him that there’s another way. That he doesn’t have to serve Voldemort if he doesn’t want to. And we’d like your help to go talk to him.”

Harry snorts. “What makes you think it would help? If anything, he probably hates me even more now because I keep defeating him in Defense.” Malfoy hasn’t tried the Cruciatus Curse on him again, but he sure glares a lot as though he’d like to cast it, and only his own self-protective instincts are holding him back.

“Just that you’re the Boy-Who-Lived, and you could probably reassure him—”

“I’m not properly part of the war anymore,” Harry refutes with a shake of his head. “I think I’ll probably hurt your petition. I’ll wish you good luck, though,” he adds, and turns back to his scroll. “You’ll need it.”

Hermione sounds uncertain. “You—you don’t think that it’s worth trying to stop Malfoy from being one of _them_?” She lowers her voice, since they are still in the Gryffindor common room, with a few notorious gossipers sitting around. “Why not?”

“I think that it’s not going to work, and even if it is, Snape is probably doing a better job than we could.” It hasn’t escaped Harry’s notice how often Snape hauls Malfoy into a corner of the Defense classroom for a “chat,” or tells him to stay behind when they leave class. “I think probably he and Dumbledore both know.”

“It’s a chance to save a soul, though.” Hermione is fidgeting with the corner of her robe.

“Why Malfoy’s soul? Why not someone else’s?” Harry sits back with a long stretch of his arms above his head. He’s been hunched over the scroll for a while. “And why us, instead of someone else? No, Hermione, sorry, but I just don’t want to take the risk. I don’t want to get involved anymore.”

“That’s what I said,” Ron interjects. “I mean, I’ll do it with you if you really want me to, Hermione, but I don’t think it’s going to change anything.” He flinches a little as Hermione turns to glare at him, but holds up his head defiantly. “Sorry. I don’t.”

“I thought we could make a difference,” Hermione whispers with a sigh. “It feels like this year is so quiet, and we aren’t making a difference like we did the first four years.”

“Last year was quiet, too,” Harry points out. “I was especially quiet.” Ron guffaws, although he sits up very straight and pretends to be serious about it when Hermione glares at him again. “And fourth year, what did we really do? Just struggle to keep me alive through the Tournament. There was nothing else that really happened until the very end.” Harry swallows roughly. He still doesn’t like thinking about the graveyard and Cedric, and most of his nightmares are about that, when he isn’t remembering the green flash that ended his mum’s life. “I think you could go talk to Professor Snape if you wanted, Hermione, but otherwise we should stay out of it.”

“I did already. He—told me to stay out of it.”

Harry chuckles despite himself. Hermione looks wounded, but only until Harry shakes his head and says, “And aren’t you going to do what the nice professor tells you?”

“Hardly _nice_ ,” Ron mutters, but he ducks expertly when Hermione tries to swat him on the back of the head.

“Seriously,” Harry says, letting his eyes show just how serious he is, and looking back and forth from one of his best friends to the other. “We did more than enough when we were kids. We stopped Voldemort from resurrecting himself years earlier, figured out that there was a basilisk plaguing the school and how to stop it, and saved an innocent man from execution. If we never did anything more than that, we still would’ve made a huge contribution to the war effort.”

Hermione thinks about it while the fire dims behind them and Harry rolls up the scroll on his lap. It’s more than clear that he’s not going to get any more work done tonight.

“I think you’re right,” Hermione says finally. “It’s unusual to feel like we should be doing something more and not having someone _helping_ us do something more, but maybe we can just wait and hope for once.”

Harry clasps her shoulder. “That’s what I’ve been doing more of this year. It’s very restful. Now, I wanted to ask you, did you notice that more mistakes seem to be appearing in the Charms book we have this year? I don’t know if Professor Flitwick chose one that was wrong or if the printer did something to them, but it’s been driving me mental...”

*

“And Professor Dumbledore hasn’t approached you again about destroying Horcruxes.” Blaise asks the question even though he knows, or hopes, Harry would have told him at once if that was the case. He knows Harry trusts him. It’s just that Harry spent years not telling even people he trusted about the secrets that are most important to him. Blaise wants to make sure he’s changed.

Harry nods against him. They’re tucked up in a corner of the library where no one except Madam Pince seems to go on the regular, two chairs shoved together so that they can sit with their legs touching and Harry’s head coiled under Blaise’s chin. “No, he hasn’t. But I wonder if that’s because Sirius succeeded in destroying the one, and then he told me last night he destroyed the other.”

Blaise tenses. “You didn’t bring that up.”

Harry looks sheepish. “Sorry, I meant to. But I’ve got to bed late two nights running, one with the conversation Hermione wanted to have about Malfoy and one with Sirius telling me about the one in the Lestrange vault. Then I had to run like hell to get to Potions on time this morning.”

Blaise nods and says, “It’s fine,” because without that kind of verbal reassurance, Harry will be worrying all day. He smooths his fingers down Harry’s palm, delighting in the little shiver and gasp that wrings from him. “And what about this rumored seventh Horcrux that Black mentioned?”

“I have no idea.” Harry shakes his head. “Maybe it’s some personal possession like the diary, and that could be anywhere. I don’t have much idea about Riddle’s childhood other than what the diary shade told me, and most of that could be lies.”

He pauses for a second, then rears back enough to look Blaise in the eye. “Why? Do you want to try destroying them?”

“No. I _want_ them destroyed, though, so the Dark Lord can’t hurt you.”

Harry shrugs and leans his head on Blaise’s shoulder. “I think it will be sooner or later. Dumbledore is probably seeking it, and if he can’t find it before he dies, then he’ll have to pass on the knowledge to Sirius, or maybe Snape for all I know.”

“Or your friends.” That’s what Blaise worries about the most, that Granger and Weasley will get some secret letter from Dumbledore or a bequest in his will and then drag Harry into it. Granger’s already shown a distressing tendency to want to interfere in things just because she successfully interfered in the past.

“Don’t worry about them, Blaise.” Harry’s voice is low and firm. “They might want to, but even if they do decide to take off into the wilderness for some reason, I won’t go with them. I promise.”

Blaise closes his eyes and nods. He’s never wanted to make Harry choose between his friends and their love, but it’s comforting to know that Harry takes his promises seriously, and will, at the very least, choose safety over danger.

They finish up their essays and leave the library, walking side-by-side with their hands occasionally brushing. They don’t get many scowls or stares now, except from the most stubborn of the Gryffindors who still believe the lies the _Prophet_ spreads about Harry. Blaise frowns as he thinks about that. Harry also forbade him from trying to take vengeance on the editors of the paper, small-minded petty fear-mongerers though they are.

Harry catches the frown and stops to rake his fingers gently through Blaise’s fringe, pushing it out of the way. “Hey,” he whispers. “It’s almost the Easter holiday. We’ll have that week together, and then we can start planning for the summer—”

A giant explosion rocks the school, so enormous that the whole building seems to lurch sideways. Blaise clutches at a wall and stares up at the cloud of smoke and ruin rising outside the windows. There’s the smell of fire, and the horrible ringing sensation in the back of his head that _something_ has gone wrong, _something_ that should be singing is silent, _something_ that should be alive is dead.

Harry, beside him, goes still and stares out the windows at the fire with savage intensity. “Voldemort,” he breathes. “That’s what he was doing. Gathering up the power and followers to launch an attack on the wards of the school.”

Then he begins to run.

Blaise, luckily, is half-waiting for that, on edge as he already was from the discussion of Weasley and Granger possibly taking off to hunt Horcruxes. He reaches out and snatches Harry’s arm, pulling him back and swinging him around. Harry is tugging at his hold before he can speak. “Let me _go_ , people could be in danger—”

“What was that about choosing safety over danger as long as you’re with me?”

Harry’s mouth works for an instant, and then he sighs and steps back, nodding curtly. “Fine. I’m sorry. I just—” He glances out the window. The smoke is roiling in clouds that tell Blaise part of the fire must be Fiendfyre by now, and there are screams distant and near and soft and loud. “I want to help people.”

“I know that,” Blaise says firmly. “But while we’re probably better-trained than most of the students in the school, we’re not of age yet and we’re not going to fight him. We’ll find the professors and you can tell them anything you think they need to know, and then we’re going to the Room of Requirement.”

Harry nods. Blaise doesn’t have to tell him that being down in Slytherin while Harry’s up in Gryffindor Tower isn’t something Blaise will tolerate. “Right.” He still gives the smoke in the window a slightly wistful glance before he lets Blaise lead him away.

*

They find Dumbledore in the middle of the central staircase, his arms spread wide, directing traffic. His booming voice appears to come from the walls instead of his mouth. “Students, return to your common rooms and stay there. Professors, to me on the third floor. We will plan the defense of Hogwarts. Students, return to your common rooms and stay there. Professors...”

He pauses when he sees them and nods to them wearily. It’s obvious to Harry that he doesn’t expect them to help. Harry just asks outright. “Sir, is there any hope of defeating Voldemort when he attacks?”

Dumbledore sighs a little. “Not when he still has at least one object tethering him to immortality,” he says, which is so direct that Harry sags a little against Blaise. “I know what Sirius has done, but we still lack the seventh. It might be his snake, Nagini. But I am not certain.”

“So you expect to fight him and die,” Blaise says, in a tone that says what he thinks of that plan.

“Either that, or destroy his snake and die,” Dumbledore says, with a slight nod. “Someone else will have to destroy Voldemort.” For a second, his eyes dart to Harry.

“I don’t have the training to destroy Voldemort,” Harry says. He glances at Blaise. “But what do you think about destroying Nagini?”

Blaise gives a long sigh that seems to start from the very bottom of his soul and whirl up around it and out his mouth. “You aren’t going to give this a rest, are you, Harry?”

“Not really, no,” Harry says, and then grins in a way that he knows startles Blaise. “But I said that I would choose safety, so that means taking someone with me.” He raises his wand and calls out the same spell that he did two years ago in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. “ _Accio Firebolt!”_

The broom speeds towards him and then slows down so that he can grasp the shaft. Dumbledore is staring as if he doesn’t believe his eyes and isn’t sure he wants to. Harry leaps up onto the broom and then stretches out a hand to Blaise.

Blaise eyes him and then the broom. “Can that thing carry two people?”

“Of course! It’ll be a little slower than normal, but it’s pretty fast already.”

“Fine, you mental person,” Blaise mutters, and then leaps up. Harry pulls him at the same time as he casts a Lightening Charm in Blaise’s direction. The last thing he wants to do is have Blaise hang like dead weight from his hand. He’s sturdy enough that it would hurt.

Blaise catches his breath as he drifts up behind Harry and lands on the broom. Then he winds his hands around Harry’s waist, and Harry nods at Dumbledore and says, “We’re going to go kill Nagini. Then you go kill him!”

“Harry, I do not even know if Nagini is the last—”

“Well, at least losing her will be _really_ bad for his morale,” Harry says cheerfully, and then he and Blaise fly out the nearest broken window and towards the fire.

It takes all of Harry’s skill to steer the double-loaded Firebolt through clouds of smoke, flying curses, drifting patches of stench, and swooping figures that look like conjured hawks towards Voldemort. But Harry knows where he’ll be as if the link in his scar is still active and pulling him. Or maybe he just knows the cowardly bastard and his tendency to lurk at the back of his troops well by now.

“Why do you want to do this?” Blaise shouts in his ear as they twirl past the Whomping Willow, which is frantically trying to strike out at the Death Eaters while burning. Harry casts _Aguamenti_ to dump a ton of water on it and hopes that helps. It’s out of sight in the next moment.

“I owe him for the Parseltongue curse!” Harry shouts.

After a second, Blaise nods. He must know as well as Harry that this is their best chance, their last chance, to get revenge on Voldemort. They certainly haven’t been anywhere close to him since that night in the graveyard.

The broom twists some more over the battlefield, and then Harry sees Voldemort. He’s unmistakable, even with the dark hood of his cloak pulled over his face. He’s taller than almost anyone else, and his white hand gestures wildly in the air from where he stands atop a slight hill near the Forbidden Forest. Nagini is coiled at his side.

“Prepare a shield for me!” Harry yells over his shoulder.

“The Portable _Protego_?”

“Yes! That one!”

Harry’s wand is already glowing with the overpowered Shattering Curse that Mrs. Zabini taught him over Christmas. He stoops down towards Voldemort. Blaise is muttering quietly behind him, readying the Shield Charm.

Nagini is the one who sees them first. She uncoils, her head flinging back. Harry can see the gleam of venom on her fangs and knows that it would be a _really_ stupid idea to get close enough to let her bite him.

Harry aims the Shattering Curse directly at the middle of her, while Blaise holds up the shield, projecting from his wand, so that it covers their sides and the broom.

The Shattering Curse lands in the middle of Nagini—and things fail to happen. Harry curses as he realizes that she’s still alive and not in bits all over the ground. He turns the Firebolt as hard as he can, skimming over the side of the hill.

“Harry!”

Blaise screams it in his ear just before the spell from Voldemort’s wand lands and makes short work of their shield. Harry hears a ringing noise in his ear, he feels something like overpowered bits of magic fly past him, and then he’s rolling on the grass with Blaise right behind him, cutting his hands on splinters of wood.

His Firebolt. His Firebolt is _gone._

Harry hardly has time to absorb that before he whips around and sees Nagini slithering straight at him. In desperation, his hand goes to his pocket, and he pulls out the holder wand that Mrs. Zabini gave him for Christmas.

She charged it with a spell. Harry didn’t want her to, argued against it, but she told him that it was for his protection, and that he could replace it with another spell as soon as he wanted to.

Honestly, Harry’s almost forgotten it since they’ve been at Hogwarts. It isn’t dangerous at the school when you stay out of shit the way he has been this year, and he certainly didn’t anticipate finding himself in a corner after a duel in Defense or something like that.

But now—

Harry holds the wand in both hands as Nagini slithers towards him. He can hear Blaise yelling at him, but then Blaise shuts up even before Nagini gets in range, maybe because he remembers the spell his mother put in the holder wand as well as Harry does.

Harry breaks the wand as Nagini lunges for him, mouth wide open.

The brilliant green light of the Killing Curse fills the battlefield.

Harry can feel, for a second, an incredibly cold wave of power pass over his hands, and he hears Mrs. Zabini’s voice whispering, as though she stood beside him, “ _Avada Kedavra._ ” And it strikes Harry as wonderful, in a way, that the spell that killed his blood mother is now going to save him when cast by the wand of his adoptive one.

There’s a moment when everything seems to fill the world with light, and Harry almost wonders if another Killing Curse has flown the same way and caught him, too. Then he looks down, and finds Nagini motionless on the battlefield in front of him.

 _The Killing Curse works on living Horcruxes, if she was one,_ Harry thinks, and swallows. _Thank Merlin._

“Harry!”

“Harry Potter.”

Harry jerks his head up. Voldemort is stalking towards him, hood pulled back now so that those red eyes can burn into him. Harry feels a surge of the terror he did in the graveyard, when Voldemort bound his voice with the Parseltongue curse, but he buries it. He’s tougher now than he was two years ago, and he’s been through a hell of a lot more. He readies his wand.

“Do you know what you have _done_?” Voldemort’s voice spirals up into a shriek like the cry of a hunting bird, and Harry is suddenly and absolutely sure that he’s right, that he knows what Voldemort means, the same way he knew for sure that Fawkes and the Sorting Hat were there to help him in the Chamber in second year.

“Destroyed your Horcrux?” Harry asks.

Voldemort goes still, his eyes wide and shocked. Harry is aware that Blaise is stirring next to him, probably preparing a spell or a carefully coordinated rush off the battlefield, but he doesn’t look away from Voldemort’s face.

Yes. That’s right. His seventh Horcrux is dead.

Voldemort is _mortal._

Harry wants to laugh and charge him, but Blaise hisses right in his ear, “You _promised_ me,” and Harry manages to step back with a sigh. Besides, he can see a white-robed figure hurrying towards them across the battlefield, and he reckons that Dumbledore is on the way to keep his own promise.

Harry steps back, feeling Blaise’s arm coil around his waist. He wouldn’t even dare to do that much, but Voldemort has noticed Dumbledore now. He’s turning to face him, his hood billowing behind him, his eyes full of hatred.

Harry wonders for a second if Voldemort will flee, which would be a terrible thing, but then realizes that Voldemort doesn’t know that the rest of his Horcruxes have been destroyed. It’s one thing for his enemies to be aware of them and another thing to realize that they’ve tracked down all of them.

And the Death Eaters are here, watching, an army of them. Voldemort probably doesn’t dare make his followers think he’s a coward or afraid of losing.

“Let’s get _out_ of here,” Blaise insists in a whisper.

Harry casts a powerful Disillusionment Charm that will hide both of them, and they do.

*

“Sirius says he’ll buy me a new Firebolt.”

“Oh, good. I was so worried.”

Harry leans his head back and laughs. Once again, they’re in the garden at Mother’s villa, and Harry has his head in Blaise’s lap. But Blaise feels so much lighter than he did at Christmas that there’s no comparison. The Dark Lord is gone, and if Dumbledore is the hero of the hour and everyone seems to be confused that Harry didn’t defeat him, that only means he has more time to spend with Blaise.

“You should have been, you wanker. What kind of Dark-Arts-proficient Slytherin can’t even hold a Shield Charm that can save a broom?”

Blaise leans down and kisses Harry instead of answering. Harry gasps and reaches up a hand to clutch at his hair.

Blaise cradles Harry’s head in his arms and bends down further, ignoring the pain in his neck, reveling in the fact that he can kiss Harry for as long as he likes and no one is going to come after them.

No one will separate them. They might have a funeral to attend in a few months, Albus Dumbledore’s funeral, but in the end, Blaise can’t even resent the old man that much. He did what he should have done from the beginning, and he protected the school well enough that there were only injured students, no dead ones.

Blaise will go, and pay his respects, and know that, in the end, he’s the one who won.

Him and Harry.

**The End.**


End file.
